Job lands parolee in jail

By JIMMY VIELKIND Capitol bureau

Published 6:00 am, Monday, December 27, 2010

A rally on the steps of the state Capitol Wednesday April 29, 2009 announced a new initiative, Operation SNUG, aimed at helping local law enforcement and anti-violence community groups steer at-risk residents away from gangs and illegal guns. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

A rally on the steps of the state Capitol Wednesday April 29, 2009...

Albany Common Council member Barbara Smith speaks during a news conference on the steps of the state Capitol Wednesday April 29, 2009, to announce a new initiative, Operation SNUG, aimed at helping local law enforcement and anti-violence community groups steer at-risk residents away from the culture of gangs and illegal guns. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Albany Common Council member Barbara Smith speaks during a news...

Jermal Greenwood is serving time at the Albany County jail after his parole officer became concerned about odd hours he was working as a mediator in Operation SNUG, a state program designed to combat gang violence and illegal gun use.
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ALBANY -- The people who hired Jermal Greenwood as part of Operation SNUG, an experimental anti-violence initiative funded by a state grant, thought his background as an ex-offender made him a "credible messenger" and a "role model" to mediate disputes in the city's roughest neighborhoods.

But his parole officer, concerned that Greenwood was bending the rules, threw him in the Albany County jail Nov. 8 after charging him with failing to abide by his curfew and correctly charge his electronic monitoring bracelet 11 times in three weeks.

Greenwood pleaded guilty Tuesday to two violations and will remain in custody until early February. His attorney, Gaspar Castillo, said the violations were "hyper-technical" and that Greenwood was just doing his job.

"I understand how they think. Their job is to supervise people and keep a leash on them and keep them from getting involved in criminal activity," Castillo said. "Here, this job requires them to allow this guy to do stuff in ways that they would normally never allow. I want to credit them for that. It's a big deal for them to let a person on parole do this type of work."

That included flexibility to be out later on weekends, Castillo said, beyond Greenwood's normal 9 p.m. curfew. On Nov. 8, the date of the violations to which Greenwood pleaded guilty, Castillo said Greenwood "effectively mediated the dispute that might have effectively escalated to some physical violence with the participants" while away from his West Hill home between 4:30 and 5:48 a.m.

"We bent over backwards to try to support him working these insane hours," said Carol Weaver, a spokeswoman for the Division of Parole. "It looked like he was taking advantage ... like he was just using this time to not do what he was supposed to be doing."

Both Weaver and Castillo -- and other officials and activists interviewed for this article -- agree on one thing: the SNUG program is innovative. It was championed by Democrats in the state Senate including Neil Breslin, a Bethlehem Democrat, and New York City Democrats Malcolm Smith, and Eric Schneiderman (the incoming attorney general) as a progressive alternative to break the ongoing of cycle of violence in urban neighborhoods. They set aside $4 million in the 2009-10 budget, announcing the program in April, 2009, with great fanfare.

"The evidence is absolutely conclusive that traditional law enforcement approaches have not succeeded in stopping gang violence," Schneiderman, D-Manhattan, said. "This is an all-levers approach."

SNUG is based on Project Cease Fire in Chicago, which takes an epidemiological approach to urban violence. If the population is inoculated -- children hearing stories of disputes settled by words rather than seeing street fights or shootings -- and some of the worst carriers are isolated, eventually the problem goes away.

Albany is the first New York-funded program to get off the ground, according to Trinity Alliance CEO Harris Oberlander, whose organization received a $500,000 grant. Its work fulfills a recommendation from the Albany Gun Violence Task Force. That body conducted meetings throughout 2008, as the high profile shooting deaths of University at Albany student Richard Bailey and 10-year-old Kathina Thomas increased public attention to the problem.

Oberlander said SNUG's work in Albany will be reviewed by researchers at UAlbany and elsewhere. A panel including representatives of Trinity, the Albany Police Department, local churches as well as former State Police Superintendent Harry Corbitt signed off on everyone hired. Lisa Good and Jamel Muhammad oversee four outreach coordinators and two violence interrupters -- including Greenwood. Nearly all of the employees have criminal records, Oberlander said.

Including Greenwood. He was arrested in 1989 with two ounces of cocaine, and convicted of drug possession and escaping from a police station. He served 12 years in prison, and another stint after he was arrested in 2003 for evidence tampering. He was last released in July 2009, and according to the Rev. Joyce Hartwell, has enrolled at Hudson Valley Community College.

He will spend his 41st birthday in jail.

"Role models like this guy are extremely important," she said. "I think parole (officials) all over the state have to understand that if we can get people involved in changing the situation, well, we've got gunshots in the middle of the night and you can't have somebody home at nine o'clock."

Oberlander agreed.

"The whole model is predicated on hiring credible messengers who will be able to circulate in the community among gang involved, violence involved, drug involved individuals," he said. "It's important that we begin to create a body of work, a record in the community and a sense of evidence that we've begun to, as the model calls for, infiltrate the community with public health messages that counteract the fact that communal violence has been on the landscape for too long."

"How are they supposed to help people if they themselves cannot uphold the rule of law?" said Golden, a Brooklyn Republican and former New York City police officer. "We're going to be more serious on crime and more serious about how the taxpayer dollar is spent."

It's unclear if Greenwood will continue with SNUG when he is released. Oberlander said employees under arrest cannot be paid but his hope is that "any person in such a position would clear up the matters with probation or parole or whatever and be eligible to return to our employment."

Weaver, the Parole Division spokeswoman, said "I don't know what's going to happen after the three-month hold, if he's going to be allowed to go back with these hours."